EPA Seeks to to Put Edwards Air Base on Superfund List

The federal Environmental Protection Agency Thursday proposed adding Edwards Air Force Base to a national priority list of hazardous waste sites that could endanger public health.

Contaminants from six hazardous waste sites at the base could seep into ground water and threaten the drinking water of residents of the base and surrounding communities, officials said.

“There is no immediate threat, but it is a potential health problem,” said EPA spokesman Terry Wilson.

The EPA acknowledged that the Air Force has cleaned up 15 hazardous waste sites on the base in recent years, part of a program that has cost $10 million since 1981 and will cost at least another $10 million to complete.

Don Haley, an Edwards Air Force Base spokesman, said Air Force officials are willing to work with environmental officials but would like to review the EPA findings before taking a position on Thursday’s proposal.

“Once we assess the information, if we find that it’s all correct, we’ll accept the findings,” Haley said. “We don’t think there’s a pressing danger. But there’s no hostility on our part. We’ll continue our cleanup program whether we’re on the national priority list or not.”

The EPA used information supplied by the Air Force and from federal and state health and environmental agencies in proposing Edwards and 10 other federal facilities in California for the Superfund National Priority List of hazardous waste sites. Forty-one other federal facilities are on the list nationwide, with another 74 federal facilities proposed for ranking as high-priority waste sites, officials said.

While privately owned sites on the priority list are eligible to receive Superfund money for cleanup, federal facilities use money from their own budgets. If environmental officials decide to give Edwards Superfund priority after hearing from base officials and the public over the next two months, the EPA will oversee cleanup efforts at the base, Wilson said.

Like any other government operation or private business, the base is not eager to be placed on the National Priority List, Haley said.

“It creates a perception that we are harming people or things or the environment, and we don’t feel that’s the case,” he said. “Our studies show that the ground water is not contaminated.”

Priority Status

But priority status will give the base a better chance at getting more cleanup funds from the Department of Defense, Haley said.

The 800-square-mile base on the border of Kern and Los Angeles counties is a center of flight testing and research with a daytime population of about 18,000.

The six hazardous waste sites targeted by the EPA include an abandoned landfill and other dumping areas where fuel, nitric acid and other industrial wastes have seeped into the ground.

Those wastes could pose a danger to the neighboring communities of Rosamond and North Edwards as well as people who live and work at the base, Wilson said. Rosamond has a population of about 4,200 and North Edwards has a population of about 1,400.

Rosamond has experienced numerous hazardous waste problems in recent years, with state health officials investigating a possible link between hazardous waste dumping and a high rate of cancer among children.

But the EPA’s Wilson said the hazardous wastes at Edwards have no bearing on current problems in Rosamond.

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